BLACKHAWKS BITS

Chicago Blackhawks' Patrick Kane now understands Denis Savard firing

Credits successor Joel Quenneville with great match-up moves

May 14, 2009|BY CHRIS KUC

No player took the firing of Denis Savard as coach of the Blackhawks after four games this season harder than second-year winger Patrick Kane.

Now nearly seven months later and the Hawks in the Western Conference finals for the first time since 1995, Kane and his teammates understand the decision by the team's hierarchy to bring in Joel Quenneville behind the bench.

"At the time it was pretty tough on guys like myself," said Kane, who was moved to tears in the Hawks' dressing room after the Oct. 16 dismissal. "If you look at it now, it looks like it was the right move for the organization.

"He really knows what he's doing behind the bench when he puts the lines out there with the matchups he's trying to get. You could see [Monday night when Vancouver] iced the puck [in Game 6 of the semifinals]. Usually a coach would come back with the top line, but we put our so-called fourth line out there with [Adam] Burish, [Ben] Eager and [Patrick] Sharp and they ended up scoring a goal. He does a lot of things like that."

West Madison freeze-out: A night after bringing down the United Center house with their Game 6 victory over the Vancouver Canucks, several of the Hawks attended the Bruce Springsteen concert at the arena.

"I think it was louder for Game 6 to be honest," said Brent Seabrook, who went to the show with teammates Kris Versteeg, Dustin Byfuglien and Jake Dowell. "He put on a great show [Tuesday], but I like the show we put on."